Genesys and IBM team up for expanded offering in China

Genesys and IBM have expanded their eight-year partnership to provide new call center technology to the growing Chinese market.

Under their Strategic Alliance for Contact Center Solutions, Genesys and IBM are co-developing, implementing and selling the IBM Contact Center in a Box. Contact Center in a Box can be deployed in 90 days and is scalable for small, midsize and enterprise-level companies.

“We wanted to do something specific that would resonate in China,” said Dave Radoff, director of corporate communications and analyst relations for Genesys. “In a Box brings together the skill set available in China and the state of that market today. A big part of China's market is 50 to 100 seat contact centers, which is why we did the In a Box — it's a compact version, and in China people want to get up and running very quickly.”

Genesys, a software provider, will supply the Contact Center in a Box with Session Initiation Protocol support, computer telephony integration technology and self-service capabilities. Contact Center in a Box also offers sales and after-sales support from Siebel.

Before launching Contact Center in a Box, IBM surveyed more then 300 of its customers in the China region. IBM and Genesys both have an existing presence in China, which each hopes to expand through the new partnership. Much of Genesys' work in the region is through partnerships.

“China has gone from a very bustling economy with little emphasis on customer service to one that is starting to invest much more heavily in it,” said Radoff. “The market has continued to grow much faster, and we wanted to add some bandwidth in terms of our partner presence.”

Most marketing efforts will be focused on potential customers rather than existing ones. Key clients will come from banking, insurance and telecommunications verticals.

“The interesting thing is that, by coming into this type of investment at this time, a lot of companies are able to leverage newer technologies and newer ideas about how to conduct customer service,” Radoff concluded. “The IBM Web recognition software is very sophisticated and can use Genesys software, and the core Genesys system can work across Web, cell phones and new multimedia.

“So in a lot of ways economies like China are benefiting from advances that have happened in the last five years or so. To that extent, it's a plus for them to be investing now, so you'll see really sophisticated customer service capabilities in places like China over time.”

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